Mr. Nicholas Beckmann, a big favorite among students for his humor and ability to keep students engaged with just the overall tone and passion he speaks with. When it comes to wintertime finals come up and the stress is real, especially when it comes to AP classes such as AP government. An AP class that Beckmann teaches he understands all the work it can take to get a good final grade and things can become overwhelming and over-fixation can happen. Sometimes students just need an outlet from the class, a little break away from learning

Due to Beckmann’s love for a good cookie, preferably chocolate chip,he provides an opportunity for his students to bring in cookies for a rating. He rates them from one to ten based on personal criteria, but the rating is mainly just for fun.

“Obviously taste and presentation matter. I always make jokes about the chocolate chip to cookie ratio; how there’s a perfect amount. You can’t have too much chocolate chip, but you can’t have not enough. Your cookie can’t be too thin, there’s a lot of things that go into it, and there’s always things that can be done to make a better quality cookie.” Beckmann said.

Brendan Ward, the baker who earned the title of highest-rated cookie with a 9.0, knows just like Beckmann said, that there’s always things you can do even if it’s the little things. 

“I tried a lot of different things, I used Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookies, and then I added peppermint, which was a special type of peppermint. I also tried the candy canes, and the Ghiradelli candy peppermint bars,” Ward said, “Then I combined those and put them into the cookies. I exactly weigh them to 1.5 grams and put them in the oven, rotating the sheet at specific times to make sure they are cooked evenly.” 

After trial and error in Ward’s kitchen, and an unhealthy amount of peppermint chocolate chip cookies, Ward went back and forth until the third time. Ward came in with his best batch yet, and it finally met his personal goal. A 9.0 out of 10.0 is the highest score still to this day with Kara Middleton a senior student of Mr. Beckmann’s coming close with a 8.8 this year.

For students that think they can do better, Beckmann teaches a variety of history classes that can all participate in the cookie rating.